Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Last Monday Matt and I went to see 2 different RE’s about a donor egg IVF cycle. Now, the 1st one is here in our town and is “cheaper” than most places but seems to be a great place. Very kind, clean and I talked to a lady waiting there and she said the staff is unbelievable, however, she did disclose that the doc/office is often running behind and I hate that. I have left doctors for that. Its not that I think I cant wait, its that I have to leave work to go to the doc and although my boss is more understanding than most, I don’t want to take advantage of his kindness.

Anyway, he would like to do a donor cycle but 1st wants to do the test on my uterus, Intermin B to make sure all is well. Then, if not ok there will be a 3 month “treatment” of Lupron to put me in fake menopause for those 3 months. Then I would go right into the D/E IVF cycle. If all is fine with the test I would just go right into the cycle. Apparently the docs wife is a lawyer so she is able to cut costs quite a bit with the donor cycles. The lady that handles it is gone on va-ca that week so I will talk with her next week about what the bottom line cost would be. We assume its about 12-15K cuz insurance will pay for everything after the retrieval, thank goodness.

The 2nd doc, much more expensive and way better success rates is in Gurnee, with traffic its got to be an hour or more from home. He was pretty arrogant but I guess who wouldn’t be considering his rates at the moment. He, like my other regular RE, does not do that test on the uterus because he doesn’t think it is worth the time and doesn’t believe that even with treatment it would matter. He said that people who have the test come out badly can carry babies to term and the data out there just doesn’t show it’s a test that really matters. He was surprised that we would even be considering a D/E cycle cuz we still have a 25% chance of conceiving with my eggs.... he said most people don’t consider a D/E cycle until the chances are 5% or lower. The success rate with my eggs would be 25% and with a donor would be 70% at this office. He also said that sometimes he turns people away from D/E cycles when their success would be 25% but he would let us do it if we wanted to. I have talked to 4 RE’s now and 3 out of those 4 do not do the test since the consider it not helpful.

This is the crazy part - I talked with them and even tho we have some insurance coverage, they would have us pay everything up front and then try to get the insurance to give us the amount due to us after the retrieval. The cost they want is 25K and that doesn’t include the medication or freezing or anything really. THEN she says to me that the amount I would prob get back is about $1,500.00 which makes no sense to me at all but I was sick of talking to her so I just let it go.

While there I had an ultrasound done and they found at least 6 fibroids that they catch with the u/s machine. Now, these shouldn’t be an issue cuz they are not around the lining where the baby would implant but he also said it could be an issue and then I asked what we should do about them and he mentioned having them removed so thats great but then he said its not a good idea since it can cause scar tissue and hurt chances of carrying a baby to term, geesh! He was talking out of both sides of his mouth really. DH and I really liked him and the clinic but this price stuff is just obnoxious!

OH, AND I found out htat my regular RE who was the one who mentioned this donor egg cycle in the first place have NEVER even done a donor IVF cycle. There is a place where every doc has to send in “results” of fertility treatments and such and they have a big fat -0- for donor cycles. That probably woulda been something to tell me before I drop 20K in their lap! Urg!

We haven’t totally decided what we are gonna do and we talked about not making the decision based solely on money but the difference between the 2 is just too much not to consider the money. I really think we will be going with a donor cycle over at the office in town here, that will actually bill to my insurance. However, I don’t think I will be going with the Intermin B test if there is no reason to do it or a way to "fix" it. I think that may cause more stress with all of this.

I got myself all worked up and crazed the other day reading over all the things they sent over.I was reading all the info and they had things in there that I had never even thought about..... do we tell the child I am not actually the bio mother? And if we choose not to then we better make darn sure nobody else knows and it slips out during bobs drunken rant on thanksgiving or whatever. How devastating would that be to find something like that out later in life? I can only imagine we would tell the child or children but how do you even talk about that and when??? Geesh! Then what happens if they want to meet the donor and how to tell them that isn’t even possible - I dont want a child getting all sad and weird about it cuz its not the "norm". Im sure people deal with it all the time cuz of adoption but kinda different. I have no idea when the 1st D/E IVF baby was born so im guessing that there arent a lot of groups out there to talk to about how they brought it up and how the child felt about it....... why does this have to be so complicated :(

Thank goodness they have pictures in the book they allow us to see - how else would they know if we were getting an egg from Matt’s family member? Like what if his cousin was looking for some cash while in college and didn’t tell anyone? What about if they marry a half sibling or what if they become jerk teens and give me crap abotu not being their "real” mother or feel like I was nicer or more loving to my other children..... ugh, the possibilties are just endless and sacry but I spose kids could feel and act up even with out this issue.

I think I watch "Intervention" too much, lol

I go back and forth between using my eggs and not using my eggs. I don’t know why but I just keep feeling that its not my eggs, that it can happen and we are just really, really un-lucky. But, this may make me sound horrid but the thought of NOT taking those meds is pretty darn appealing to me so the D/E cycle seems very a lot less stressful on my body. Because I have 2 children I sometimes fear not being able to love a D/E child as I do my own, what if they have some annoying habit that I just cant stand or what if I find them funny looking?!?!?!?! With your children most of those things you don’t even notice but with knowing that its really not "mine" will I be able to do that? In my heart I know I could but I still worry about it since I know that amazing bond that comes with a child. Does it come with carrying and living with the child OR does it come from biology? I guess that whole "nature vs. nurture" thing.

Is the most important part that the child purely exists out of LOVE? The love Matt and I share, the love and kindness of a stranger brave enough to help another woman have a child she so desperately wants and deserves and while the biological egg is not mine, it will be my body that nourishes that baby and gives it life. Without me, it may be just another egg shed during a menstrual cycle never having a chance at life.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Seems as tho my body likes to miscarry and is apparently very good at it. Too bad it wasnt really good at carrying a baby to term.Bitter sweet call today from the nurse at the RE's office. My pregnancy levels are "less than 1" which means my body did m/c on its own. Thats good news but still hard to take. I knew it wasnt gonna go this way but i sure would have liked to hear that my levels went up and the baby was just messin wiht me before, lol, wouldnt that have been nice. No such luck.I asked to have the doc call me 2moro to go over some things that i want to have done. There are a few blood tests that I can assume that i have had done but who knows so Im gonna ask and if i have not had them then its time to get going on that. I am also gonna ask to have 2 tests done on my uterus, even tho 1 would prob be good enough. I would like to have a saline test done, where they inject saline into your uterus to see how it coats it, looking for polyps and fibroids near the lining. I would also like to have an MRI done to check for the same. Apparently, having fibroids near the lining can mess whit implantation so that would be something ot look for. I know that i have a fibroid in my uterus because my other doc saw one during an ultrasound but she said it was not a problem since it was no where near the lining.I find it very strange that i can get pregnant 4 times in the last 2 years, 3 of those on our own, and lose the baby at almost the exact same time every time and NO ONE can tell me what is wrong.... seems strange that all the tests come back great and then at the same time every time the baby just takes a nose dive and is gone a week later. Weird.I cant get over the heartache, I'm still so sad and very very mad about it all. I am so testy and the thought of doing anything cept going to work is just too overwhelming to me. I dont remember the last time i made a meal for the kids or Matt or myself for that matter. I just dont have any gumption right now. Kinda just going thru the motions and having a pity party for me.... boo-hoo.....

I dont want to give up, i want to know why this is happening. If this is the way it is i want to know why - what the hell is going on - i want to know. There is an answer and i swear I'm gonna figure it out. If its my uterus then we know not to invest the money into donor eggs but if its not my uterus then its time to find ourselves a donor so that we can get going with that. I need to know what it is.I am way more careful and cautious then i was when i had the kids. I smoked cigs, drank alot when i got preggo with harmony, smoked again until i found out i was preggo with bray and never once took a vitamin until i got a positive pregnancy test. I ate whatever i wanted and that would be pasta and rice and bread/butter. I know i was younger at that point but how the hell did i get THAT old in the last 10 years? It doesnt make sense to me.

Monday, May 11, 2009

About a week and a half ago I tested positive for pregnancy, again. YEAH! So I tested every day to make sure that the line would get darker and it did, yeah again! That means that the pregnancy hormone, HCG, is getting higher and that is what you want. Since this was a cycle where we had no idea when I ovulated or when my period was due I waited a bit to go to the doctor to confirm.

I went to the doctor on Tuesday afternoon and the office called to confirm pregnancy and asked me to come back again on Thursday to make sure the my levels doubled in the 48 hours. Went back on Thursday afternoon and everything looked great, baby was doing what we needed. 1 final blood-test and then they would schedule my ultra-sound and set up a due date, again, cuz we didnt know when I ovulated.They asked me to come back on Sunday, Mothers Day, for the final test. Made me a little nervous. T to be honest, I wasnt going to go just in case something was wrong but then I figured there was NO way in hell the universe would fuck me on Mothers Day and I did not deserve to hear that ironically I was losing a baby on Mothers Day - so I went.Man, was I wrong. Got the call from the nurse while I was at Walgreens, 11:00a.m. The nurse said “I’m sorry to tell you this but your numbers went down and you will loose this pregnancy”. I could only get out “ok, thanks for calling” and then left the store to cry in the car. Drove home and broke down while telling Matt about the call. Hugged him and sobbed for 10 min or so and then pulled it 2gether, fixed my make-up and prepared for guests. 20 min later people were arriving.Matt offered to call everyone to call off brunch but I said no. I tried my damnest to put on a happy face and not think about the call or that all I wanted to crawl in a hole. We didnt say anything at the brunch, no need to ruin everyone elses day too. No one even knew we were expecting again anyway.

This is the 4th miscarriage in 2 years, the last time I got positive pregnancy test at home in December last year I never even went into the doc to confirm so that one they don’t even know about.

I dont get it, I just dont get it. Life isnt fair but this is just cruel, why am i getting pregnant and not being able to carry to term, why cant they find a damn thing "wrong" wiht either of us, why cant they tell me why this is happening? Why does ever single test we do come out fine and no reason for any of this?

I thought after the 1st m/c that I couldnt take much more and we just keep taking more and more with no reasons or answers. I just cant for the life of me understand what the hell we did to deserve this. My heart is just broken over and over.Thank goodness for the kids and Matt or i would be completley lost. The kids kept close to me yesterday and Brayden gave me plenty of cuddles and hugs and lots of "i love you's" just like I needed.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

I know that I can get pregnant and I know that at one point in my life I could keep a baby and deliver a baby so that is a good start.My entire life I have always said that 35 was my cut-off for actively trying to get pregnant but have decided to extend that until the end of this year which will be my 35th year anyway. I truly fear the complications that can, and often do, with pregnancies in ladies after 35, esp cuz of all that I have gone thru with hormones and stuff in my 30's.

So here it is...... drum roll please.......

Try naturally April, May and June cycles (no testing, no meds no natta just doing the deed if and when we wanna) then start looking for a donor egg lady in July. That process take awhile, at least 2 month, prob more, so the IVF transfer wouldn’t take place with that until September sometime - at the earliest. If that doesn’t work hopefully we will have frosties to transfer from that cycle and we will go ahead with a FET, frozen embryo transfer. Then, done, that will bring us to the end of the year and then im tapping out and getting that damn boob job dammit!

The time trying naturally is really just to get my life back and not think about anything. I am not good at just sitting back and doing nothing so knowing that I have a plan will help me to deal with the down time. I will enjoy the weather, kids, baseball and just life in general trying my best not to think about how old I am getting.

Monday, March 30, 2009

At the end of this L-O-N-G week the family will be leaving on a jet plane to Texas. I have never been to Texas and very much looking forward to going there, mostly because it’s a warmer state and I am sick to death of Wisconsin gloom, ugh!The kids are so super duper excited to leave cuz they have tickets to Wrestle Mania 25. They can barely contain their excitement. Harmony has saved money for her own souvenirs and is collecting money from the kids at school to get them something at the main event. Brayden has a lil bit of money but I assume he will be quite pissy when he is proven wrong and cant buy anything cool with 15 bucks. I am pretty sure he will live and be just fine tho.

I cant believe how happy I am to get out of town for a bit, life isn’t as busy as it normally is but I still am just giddy about leaving and maybe, just maybe, seeing and feeling that sun-shine for a few days! I am not looking forward to wearing shorts but I guess thats the price ya gotta pay!

Baseball season is coming up quickly and I am excited about that even tho there are 2games a week and then at least 1 practice so our lives pretty much revolve around that. Thats ok, it forces me (and Harmony) to go out into the world and not hide in the house which we tend to do a lot.

I have put into effect a very strict budget and thinking about opening an ING account for long term savings. Im hoping that I can stick to the budget, I don’t spend all that much on unnecessary things so it may be hard to save more - I’m sure there are things I can stop buying or shave off from some expenses. We are planning a trip to Disney in April of 2010 and are not going to use any credit cards so we have to save about $500 a month to make it a nice trip where we don’t have to stay in a budget hotel or only eat chips and drink water for the whole week, lol. To be perfectly honest the kids are way more excited about the trip to Wrestle Mania then they are about the trip to Disney - go figure.

So after deciding that I will no longer be using fertility treatments now I have to get my body back on track - after almost 2 years of manipulating ovulation, etc, my body is pretty out of wack. I am on cycle day 39 or so right now when my cycles are normally (without medication that is) 32 days on the dot. I know I am not pregnant so I am just waiting on that lovely period now, who know when she will show. I didnt pay any attention this month to what day I was on or if and when i would ovulate, it was so nice not having to think about that crap. :O)

Friday, March 20, 2009

Yesterday I got to spend some much needed time with my lil guy. He had a therapy appt in the morning so he skipped school, i took off of work and we spent the morning 2gether.After his therapy appts i usually am either confused or scared. This time i am scared. SO much is coming out in therapy that i didn't even know. Not only is he eating things that are not food but he has a ton more of the OCD things going on, most of them revolve around me dying. He is having a lot of bad thoughts, wishing that he or someone that he is mad at will die. Then he will do these rituals to negate the bad thoughts cuz he really doesn't want us to die. Its so sad and its like a really fast rollercoaster that i cant get off of or take a breath. I try to make it seem like i am not bothered by it and that its normal for his sake but i am scared to death.We had his bloodwork done and everything came back fine, no thyroid issue and no lead (which is soo good). I also had an appt with the IEP team at Braydens school to see if he would be able to get help at school. Turns out that they dont think he is behind enough to get him help. Obviously i would rather my kid not need the IEP and be "labeled" but c'on, he is so stressed and doesnt know what a 5th grader should. I was shocked to hear them all say that he is "just like the other 5th graders" - not true. I have talked with other 5th granders, just like matt has, and he is very behind them. I dont understand why 4 teachers can see such a different thing then we are seeing. The therapist says it is cuz its very expensive for the schoo and they dont want to pay the fee unless they have to. What a shame. I fought as long as i could but was beaten and bullied into agreeing that he doesnt not "fit the requirements for special education". Boo! My question to them was this: So, 2 years from now when he is failing, fighting or bringing a gun to school THEN you will give him help?". They said "we can re-evaluate every year if need be". So apparently you have to be WAY in trouble to receive any help from the school. His teacher actually sat with me after the meeting and came up with some things we could do to help him, she could see how upset i was. I will be looking into ADHD meds again, hopefully we can find something that could help him. He did so well in school when he was on the last time, but the side effects just upset all of us. I have a name of a phychotrist that his therapist would like him to see, maybe he would have more ideas then the regular pediatrician would.

Anyway, at the end of the day i sat down and cried. Not for me but for my children. Both of them have issues that are neurological and the therapist says are hereditary. I did this to them, obviously not on purpose but still. My genes are not all that great and yesterday sealed the deal on the whole baby thing. I cant bring another child wiht my genes into the world, just cant do it knowing what i know now. I cant watch another person i love deal with something so hard. Yes, i know, its not cancer and its not retardation but its still a major struggle for them and not fair at all. They deserve more, more of me, more help, more of whatever i Can give them to make their life better. Bringing another child that has a high risk of having something like they do or even worse if just not right.I will consider donor eggs cuz i still would love to have more children - just not children wiht my messed up biology.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The other day I got a bill from a card that I never use. It has some money on it that Jen pays every month tho so a bill does come every month. Well, I looked at it - which I never really do since I don’t use it - and turns out there are 2 charges for MYFITNESS for $29.99 . I have no idea what that is so I try the number on the bill.... yeah, it was busy..... for 2 days! So I googled it - gotta love that - and turns out that several other people have had this issue AND have tryed to call a busy line. Funny. So I called Citi card and the lady that I talked to said I was not the 1st or even the 5th person to call with this same problem. She looked at other bills and sure enough a total of 4 charges of $29.99. $120.00 they got out of me. DAMN!! They sent me copies of the other bills and I am disputing the charges. The credit card company stopped that account and sent me another card so they are not able to charge the old one anymore.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Harmony has KP, whoopee, annoying but not deadly. We have been dealing with this since birth, practically. I had it as a kid and at least 70% of the population has it. Im sure its worse cuz we reside in the lovely non-sunny state of Wisconsin.Anyway, we have gone thru every lotion and cream around and have been given tons of scripts to use, most of them are steroid creams, they work but they also thin the skin and that cant be good long term. So i figured it was time We went to the dermatologist again and made an appt last week - it seems to be getting worse and I wanted him to try something new with her, he has this new foam stuff that he said was so new that we were the 1st of his patients to try it. He sent us away with a sample bottle, a paper script, a coupon and some hope, lol.The pharmacy had no idea what the stuff was and didnt carry it. They ordered it for me. Now, I wasnt really freakin out since our insurance is crazy good but figured it wouldn't be cheap. 1 bottle of this sh*t would have cost us $155.00 and was only about a months worth. We paid only $13.00 so great for us but what about the poor lil kid that doesn't have insurance - good lord, WTF is wrong with those companies?!?!?!? I have spent so much on different lotions that this was just a drop in the bucket but honestly couldn't understand how it is that they can really put such a huge price tag on something for frickin KP. It wont kill ya - its just annoying and not pretty to look at. It doesnt even hurt for crying out loud!

She has been using for about a week now and it looks a little better, nothing what you would think for that price. She says it is working and she likes the foam better than lotions and creams so that is good for her, that's what matters I suppose.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

My head hurt after that meeting, I don’t think Matt and I are on the same page with all of this. Neither of us actually wants to go thru this but I would rather do the adoption and he would rather do the egg donor.My issues/questions are so many that we need to discuss if we want to move forward and then call to make an appt with the doctor to discuss my concerns. I will meet with the doctor cuz Matt wants to but I know there are no answers to my questions so I think it’s a waste of time to go over all of this yet again. There are no guarantees with any of this but if we knew what the hell was wrong it would be sooooo much easier to choose what to do. Since we do not have a definite answer as to why this is not working out for us, I am not comfortable dropping 25K on a donor cycle. We don’t know if it is my eggs for sure, it could be my uterus or just really bad luck and then we go thru all of this again to not have anything except a huge bill and a broken heart at the end.

EMBRYO ADOPTION:Good: Much cheaper, no injections, already know that the embryos were "good" since they made it to the freezing stage as well as developing into a baby or 2.

Bad:The biggest issue is that the embryos are frozen and have to make it thru the “de-frosting” process and some don’t do so well. If we get a couple that has only 3 frozen embryos and only 1 of those makes it thru the de-frosting process then we are left with some pretty crappy odds. The couple chooses wether or not to allow us as a couple to adopt their embryos and they can be very picky. Since we have only been married 2 years in April that can be an issue, also religion is a big one with some people. If we found a couple that had a lot of frozen embryos and that we liked they may not approve us and then we start the whole process over again.....

EGG DONOR CYCLE:GoodNo injections for me, get to kinda hand pick what we like about the woman

BadIs very involved and expensive. We would have to go thru and pick a donor (who again, can deny us if they choose to) by going thru their very extensive information packet. They are very good at getting information on them and their background. They let us see one of the packets, 30 some pages of questions for the lady to fill out.My issue with that is we have NO IDEA if her eggs are any good. They use the same criteria and tests that they have done with me and since there is nothing technically “wrong” with me then how the hell do we know her eggs are any good? All of my tests come back great, I respond well to the meds, etc but then my eggs come out kinda crappy. No guarantee that her eggs will be any better than mine, quite an expensive risk to take if you ask me. If we go this way I would want to go with someone who has donated before and they are able to see how her eggs are but I'm guessing that since they only get 3 grand for the whole thing that most of these ladies don’t go back over and over thru the process after knowing what its like. Who knows really, maybe as a younger person w/out kids its not as bad.

Ugggg, so I am no more hopeful then I was before the meeting with her ..... this keeps getting more and more stressful and involved - I keep feeling like each time we hit a brick wall and I try to go over it there is just another frickin wall there to get in my way. This shouldn’t be this hard, it shouldn’t be like this at all but it is so I try to deal the best I can and stay as on-track as I need to be but with each time it gets more difficult to “heal and deal”. I know there are plenty of people in the world who would love to have my “problems” and would probably love to slap me for complaining about things that aren’t really problems given all that goes on in peoples lives but sometimes I have to have the pity party, probably more often than I should honestly.

Matt would like me to take some months off of the injections and then go back in for another few rounds but I just cant do that. I have given those cycles all I had and I have no more to give. I cant take a break, go back to normal life knowing that I will have to do them again. I will stress about those months coming up. In my mind I am either in or out, and I am out. I need to look to other options at this point.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Well, of course I had toilet paper but REFUSED to put another roll on and decided that it would be a fun thing to wait and see if and when someone else put another roll on without having to be asked or told...... 7 days later there is a new roll on there.I am convinced that it wouldnt be there except that I took the wet wipes (which is wht they were using instead of just getting a new roll) out so there was NOTHING to use. I happen to be in the shower when the girl had to pee. She infomred me that there we were out of wet wipes - Im not really sure why she told me about it. I am hoping she did it cuz i always ask them to let me know when things are gone, but i am leaning towards she wanted me to "fix" that problem.I said "ok" and went on showering. I told her that there was some kleenex she could use for this time, she then said "oh, well, i guess i will get some more TP". GREAT IDEA!!!! lolMy fault for always doing everything or everyone i spose but c'on, really 7 whole days?!?!?!

PS, if you were wondering, i would bring in TP every time i went to the potty so i was covered :)

Friday, February 27, 2009

Happy birthday grandma, aka GG. We went to dinner for her 80th birthday last night. great food, great place and great company - what could be better?Arent they the cutest damn people u have ever seen?!?!? Too adorable, not only do they still speak to eachother after being married for over 50 years but they still kiss!

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Even tho I am not religious, I think that giving something up for a few weeks is a good thing. Sooooo the kids and I talked about it this morning and we are claiming today as “Fat Thursday” since we missed Fat Tuesday and we are gonna pig out tonight and start the lent thing 2moro.

THE PLAN:The kids and I are gonna pick something to give up, not anything different than what other people do. Not so sure about Matt.Brayden talked about candy so I guess that is ok even tho he doesn’t really eat a lot of candy. Harmony will need to give something up as well but she didn’t want tot talk about it this morning, other things to worry about I am sure.

I will be giving up “trying to conceive” and probably frozen custard.I don’t smoke or drink and I have to pay money each time I swear around the kids so not much to give up. I will NOT be giving up fried foods since I only have those as a treat so thats not gonna happen.I will work as hard if not harder to NOT think about getting pregnant and NOT feeling bad that I am not pregnant or about the babies that are not here with us. My hope is that by working hard at not thinking about it I will be less stressed and happier. We shall see how that goes tho. What is not going to go thru my mind is “maybe I will get pregnant when im not trying” ---- then I would still be trying in my head.

This is the very 1st month in amost a 2 year period that I am seriously not doing anything to get pregnant. I may even try not to get pregnant for a change, lol.Even on the months where I was not under the care of the doc with IUI’s, IVF’s and injections I was taking a high dose of clomid on my own so there was never a time where I did nothing. I was never ok with “wasting” the month and not trying. This is gonna be hard, but I can do it!

I love my family and they are the most important thing to me and they need to feel that from now on, my kids need to stop feeling sad for me that I don’t have a baby in my tummy. Brayden talks about it often and I soooo don’t want them to think that they are not “good enough” and I need to have more children. I just love them so much that I want more of them, I spose I am greedy that way.

Today is my grannys 80th birthday and I am looking forward to dinner out to celebrate. Yum, everyone likes Carini's so its deff nice not to have to listen to the kids complain about their meals or know that the money we spend will be wasted cuz they wont eat it. Matt wont be able to stay long since he has a rehersal, he will stay for a bit.

This weekend should be fun, I have the kids for the whole weekend - they are mine, mine all MINE!!!!! Trying to come up with something to do - maybe a board game and a movie.....or..... maybe it will be nice enough to go outside! Oh my!!!

The fridge shopping has come to a hault, I just dont care to do it. All the ones that I like are over a grand and I just dont want to spend that much. I think that if i cant find one that I like I will either wait and save up a few more hundred and get one that I like OR go shopping for something else I want and then complain about the frigde. Ha ha ha. No, Im sure that I will just save up and get one that I actaully like, otherwise why get something? Why pick out something that isnt all that much better than what I already have and drop some serious cash on that?

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Have no idea what cycle day I am on or when I may ovulate and it feels good to not be counting or worrying about when we have to "do the dirty". Still dont like the fact that we are not doing anything to get to our goal but gotta move past that for now.I have made an appt with the doc and nurse who handles all of the donor and adoption stuff at the clinic for sometime next week. We will have all our questions answered. There are some places taht dont even allow you to start the process until you are married for 3 years so it would be another year before we could do that. There are no waiting periods for the egg donor cycles, of course those are 25K, lol. Figures.I have some info at home along with a DVD to watch on the embryo adoption but havnt watched it yet. Doesnt really interest me at this moment. I dont have the drive that I had last year to know more and read more and get things done. I dont know if its depression or if i just am tiered of doing this.

We are buying a new fridge and I am happy and excited abotu it, however, I am not caring to put the time into looking for one, which is strange to me. Usually i would love to be out at the stores looking around. Im sure it will pass tho. The fridges arent going anywhere so Im in no hurry.

This week is busy for all of us - Matt is working all day at school and thne all night at Potowotomi for Mardi Gras stuff so i am left to work all day and then all the kids stuff at night. I would much rather drive back and forth from Basketball and do homework then walk around a smokey casino tho.

Looking forward to my grandma's 80th birthday celebration on thursday but havnt even gone to get her a gift - totally not like me - normally I would have had the gift 3 months ago ready to wrap and give. Not quite sure when i will be going to get a gift or what it will be since the dinner is 2moro....... what do you get an 80yr old lady anyway? When I am 80 i want everyone to buy me fried cheese and then sit around telling stories about how pretty I still look. :0)

Kids are entering into a contest type of thing for their instruments, Harmony doesnt want to do it but Brayden is all for it. He has the entertaining gene, he loves to be "on stage" and have people watching him! Harmony is more like me and would be fine never being "watched" ever. I told her to give it a try and if she hated it then she wouldnt have to do it again, its not gonna kill her to try it once.Matt will make it worth their time I'm sure.

Got my hair done over the weekend and now i need a tan to match the hair, looks very summery so now i will go to the tanning bed a few times to not look so pasty - ha, ha, ha.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Let me just share another thing that I totally hate when people say to me about all this - “oh, your still young, you have time”.... or “oh, I just read about someone in their 40's giving birth” as if that is gonna make me feel better. Maybe I should go over the real statistics like it is VERY unlikely to have a child in your 40's and how your eggs get crappy come 35 and the risks to you and the baby that are involved when you are pregnant after 35, etc..... gosh, I HATE when people talk like they know what is going on and how it applies to me. Just cuz a handful of ladies had children in their 40's doesnt mean its gonna happen to every 40 year old or even that I WANT to be pregnant in my 40's, geeze, my grandma was in her 40's when I was born for crying out loud!!!I assume that most people are trying to help and give encouraging words but sometimes it gets to me.I also don’t like to hear how I should “pray” and then wait for my answer...... such crap. I would never tell someone that believes in the power of prayer that if they would just stop praying and wait for the answer if they are going thru a rough patch. I don’t understand why people think its ok to push their beliefs on people? I would never tell someone not to pray, why would someone tell me that I HAVE to pray? I don’t get it. Im assuming that they are offering help that has worked for them and appreciate that, I just don’t like when I thank them for their advise and move on and they continue to push the issue. Its great to offer help and then let it go, either I take it or I don’t but you shouldn’t force your beliefs on anyone, esp when they are going thru a rough patch. I do, however, appreciate when people say that they will pray for me - that is a kind gesture and sometimes when there is nothing else you can do for someone I understand that praying makes people feel like they are helping and that is wonderful of them to want to do that for me. That warms my heart :)

Ok, now that my rant is over, I can write.....My period showed up today and even tho you would think that would be hard, I already knew that I wasn’t pregnant so I had a few days to “prepare” for it. All the tears I had were all used up already and so 2day it was fine - now I can move forward with my new, non injection life. lolI have packed up all my ovulation and pregnancy tests along with all my left-over meds and needles, etc. Joined the Y and the kids and I are going to be going more often now since I don’t have to wonder if I could hurt something (fertility wise) if I work out a certain way.Getting my hair done this weekend and just gonna try to get back to being me. Also will start planning things like trips or things that I want to do or places I want to go - I haven’t really done that for the last year or so cuz I would always think “what if I am pregnant and cant go”..... no more (hopefully).I have said it before but this is the 1st time that I have been able to put the baby thing out of my mind. I don’t know how long I will be able to not obsess about getting pregnant but for now I feel peace. Im still very sad about it all but trying to be ok with not going with injections right now. Still something that I very much want and will try to have but for now I have to worry about me and going another route to get what we want.I think the embryo adoption may just be the way to go, however, I know that Matt wants a biological child to “carry on the name” or whatever goes thru a mans head, not real sure how those work but I know that is important to him. Once we talked about it long long ago and I forget how it went but the way he put it made sense. I know that if I didn’t have kids and I married someone with children I would love them but I definitely would want to move mountains to have a child of my own so I can understand. I know that he loves the kids and that having a child of his “own” doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love the kids very, very much.With a difference of 20 grand I think that we may just have to go with the embryo adoption first, its just so hard to decide to go and take a loan out for $25,000.00 for something that is not guaranteed. Just too hard right now.

I will be making an appt to see the person over at the docs office that handles the embryo adoption as well as the egg donor program to see what both are all about and what the breakdown of expenses are. That way matt and i can sit down and make a choice 2-gether.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Its done and over now - no pregnancy again. I dont understand why this isnt happening - its so ridiculous that we could be going thru this over and over for so long and still have no answers and no baby. I just dont get it.I go for my pregnancy test at the doctor 2moro and i will prob try to skip it. I already know - i know my body and i have tested with some mega sensitive tests that are the biggest fattest flippin negative you have ever seen. Not even a shadow of a 2nd line thats for sure.Yesterday was the hardest day i think, one would think that this would get "easier" or i would be "used to seeing the negatives" but I'm not. I will never get used to it or have it get easier, i dont know how to. If i am gonna do something i am gonna have to believe that it will happen or really what is the point of doing it? Matt has a diff way of looking at it but I'm sure that he hurts just like i do.

I cannot go thru the injections and cycles again, just cant do it. I need my life back - I need my body back and I need to stop living my life for this.

A friend offered a good suggestion, embryo adoption. Which is a helluva lot cheaper than going with the donor eggs, a difference of about 20 grand.When i get the energy or the want, i will look more into that. Maybe even talk to the doc about it - not sure if they handle that but its worth a shot, lol, no pun intended. That way I dont need to do any injections - just will have someone elses embryo put into my uterus in hopes it will implant. I will insist on at least 3 of them going in.

Monday, February 16, 2009

This is the part of the cycle when i start to freak..... Thursday is my pregnancy test and i am sooooooooooo afraid that it will be just another negative cycle.I try to stay positive but really, after all the months that it hasn't worked or worked and then turned out in a loss, its hard to stay positive.I am only a few days away from knowing if this cycle took - if not then we have some huge choices to make.I know i cant continue going this route, i assume at this point i have done all i can with what i have and its time to go to the donor eggs. Makes me very sad to think that at my age i cant have another baby and i cant give my husband a child. The donor egg cycle without a "shared risk" (where you get 4 cycles and get 80% of your money back if no live birth) are 25K, and the shared risk ones are obviously much higher.How can we take out a loan for something like this? what if it didnt work and then each and every month while paying the bill i am reminded AGAIN that i failed. I logically know that i haven't "failed" but still feels just like that - i want something very badly and want to give something to my husband that he very much wants and very much deserves and cant.Adoption is harder than you would think, given all the babies out there that need loving homes. And is looking like it cant be an option for us unless we can find some baby on our doorstep that has left his parents legally.

Rambling again but i really tend to get out of control around now..... I'm not good with not being in control and trying and doing everything right and still not getting it right.Totally scary for me........

Friday, February 13, 2009

Yesterday i got to work and as soon as i sat down to "work" i got a call from the school that Brayden had fallen over a basketball and had a gash above his eye that wouldnt stop bleeding so i let here and went to pick him up.Obviously, he looked WAY better than what i had pictured in my head..... it was pretty deep but it was very short. Not that bad, but hurt something fierce i bet!Anyway, spent like 2 hours at the ER before being seen, thank goodness the kids wasnt really hurt.By the time we were seen the thing had somewhat stopped bleeding and started to close itself so he didnt need any stitches which he was THRILLED about! I dont know how many times i said "i dont know if they are gonna stitch you but if i had to guess i would say no"..... said that at least 20 times. He was nervous, understandable thats for sure!They put these lil tape things on in a cris-cross thing and we were on our way to starbucks for a treat.After picking up the double chocolate frapachino for him i tunred the corner and he didnt have a good grip so the damn thing dumped all over him and the car. Of course i didnt have ANY napkins in the car so he had to sit in it until we got home, gross but took his mind off the eye thing.

So, that means it is 1 day closer to testing...... its sad but thats how i think - wake up every morning knowing i am 1 day closer to testing. Scary and exciting all at the same time.Pregnancy symptoms are gone, i assume that trigger shot is completely out of my system right and hoping to have it come back in a few days.Took a pregnancy test yesterday knowing it would be positive cuz of the trigger shot but kinda wanted to see the ++++ test (sick, i know...) but also gonna take one 2moro to see the negative so that i know that when i test for real if i get a + its a real one!!!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Feeling pretty crummy 2day, physically and emotionally. Just drained I spose, don’t really know exactly what it is. I still have all the pregnnacy symptoms from the trigger shot and as they go away I feel sad, as much as I hate feeling like that and not being pregnant, I am reminded as they go away that this may not happen, again.

I am still feeling sore and full in my lower abdomen as well as having a ridiculous sense of smell. Sitting at the dinner table last night I was overwhelmed with stinky feet smell, even so much that I pulled mine up to smell them at that table. They were Braydens feet and no one else could smell them.

Also still very bloated and watching for OHSS, basically over-hyper stimulation. Gaining weight fast and really bloated are 2 big signs. Since I had so many follies I have to be careful of it. Been drinking lots of water and gatoraid “type” beverages to keep that at bay.I will be going in on Friday to have my progesterone checked. I know its pretty high right now from those symptoms but I will start taking the progesterone supplements 2nite so in 2 days it should be really high!

Today I am 4dpiui (days past iui) and counting....... feels like 4ever til I can test..... I’m not even half way thru this hell yet!

Monday, February 9, 2009

IUI on saturday went as planned. We had 80 million great sperm to inject and i should have had at least 7 mature follies, maybe more.I took it easy on saturday and I was cramping soooo bad on saturday all day and night. I thought maybe it was from the IUI but since it lasted so long i am assuming that it was the ovulation of all those lil eggies. Thats good, since that way the sperm would have been waiting on them :)

2 L-O-N-G weeks til we will know if this worked...... i feel good abotu it but i normally feel optimistic right about now during a cycle. Hope this feeling stays!!!!

Friday, February 6, 2009

So got the trigger shot last night at 10pm - IUI is scheduled for 10am sharp on Saturday! I am fearful to say that I am actually feeling pretty good about this cycle since I feel that way each cycle and then feel like a total ASS when it turns out that I am not pregnant, again. It’s a risk I gotta take I spose. Im gonna say it..... here goes.....I am feeling very confident about this cycle! I have more mature follicles (as far as we can tell) than I did with the 1st IVF cycle and I feel like crap. I have talked to a lot of ladies with OHSS (over-hyper stimulation syndrom) that ended up preggo so maybe thats why I feel so shitty.My estrogen level was at 1182 and normal is way under that - cue the tears from being overly emotional. And since the trigger shot I feel pregnant which is normal since they are injecting 10,000iu of the pregnancy hormone into my body to force ovulation. I will be in lots of pain from ovulating so many follies but its the weekend so I will just rest and relax and all will be fine.The 2 week wait, or so its called in the fertility world, is fastly approaching.... that is ALWAYS the longest 2 weeks of my life. I will know in 2 weeks wether or not this took!Doc is funny and when we were measuring the follicles at the last appt he said, "there are a lot in there" and I said "GOOD, the more the better" and he says "lets hope we arent saying that in 4 weeks when we do your 1st pregnancy ultrasound".... what a funny guy! :)

Thursday, February 5, 2009

I have gone to have blood work and ultrasounds for the past 3 days in a row to check on those follies....They are doing well and growing the way they should so that is very good.Not feeling all that great today, kinda foggy mind - headache, sleepy (slept for crap the last 2 nights, maybe nerves) crampy and a bit nauseous. Prob all the meds so i should be back to my normal self in about a week

Today the follies are about 1.5mm bigger than they were yesterday, which was already anticipated so no big surprise.

I have asked for them to check my progesterone level cuz I am pretty crampy and I am fearful that my body is tyring to ovulate on its own since i have 10 follies in there ready to POP! I have lots of the ovulation "symptoms" that no one seems to know until you are wanting to get pregnant.

The grand-plan at this point is to take the trigger (inter-muscular mega, super long and thick shot) tonight around 9ish and then go in for the insemination on Saturday morning about 9ish BUT if my progesterone level is showing ovulation then I will take the trigger shot as soon as possible and go in for the insemination Friday morning.Just waiting on the bloodwork to come back now, should be here by 1 or 2.

Last night Matt hit something again, I knew right away cuz I felt the shot and that is pretty rare, i woke up wiht another bruise but NOTHING like that other one!!My stomach sure has takin a beating but nothing it hasnt felt b4, but hopefully wont feel again! :)

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Lining is 10.5 (good, thick and ready for implantation)Each follie should grow 1-2mm a day and they need to be 17 or bigger to be considered “mature enough to fertilize” but he said that some 14's have been know to contain mature eggs.Hopefully i will have 7 or more that are mature when we do the IUI.

I will be doing one more night of injections and then triggering 2moro night for an IUI on Saturday early in the morning.

He wanted me to trigger 2nite but said if we were gonna be aggressive then waiting another day was the way to go. He said “just want to make sure you are ready for your triplets” and then talked again about selective reduction if necessary. Im not freaked out by this (famous last words, right?) I am perfectly fine with the “risk” and know the odds are against me when it comes to multiples so whatever.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Oh my! I cant imagine what I would do without that site. Its very strange to me that I would be this attached to anything. I go there every day, several times a day and talk to ladies who know and understand exactly what I feel during the trying to get pregnant, the miscarriages and the fertility treatments. Its strange to me that I can root on these ladies that I have never met and care about them and their families so much. If you're going through similar situations check out fertilityties.com

Everyone there is sooooo supportive and so kind. I have learned more than I ever care to know about fertility and there is a real doctor there to answer questions, even the dumb ones that we are all afraid to ask. He never makes us feel bad and always answers in a very timely manner. I was so skeptical about him being a “real doctor” since he is giving his time for free and spends a lot of time making us all feel like he cares. He could charge so much for what he gives us for free- you can check his clinic website at carefertility.net

Never in a million years would I have guessed I would be where i am in my life and I know that I wouldnt be sane without this webiste (well, as sane as I am anyway).I wish they knew exactly how much they help and what they mean to all of us on there!Ok, I'm blabbin on and on now but I just cant say enough about the place. If Veronica or Dr Q ever read this, know you are doing a wonderful thing for us crazy TTC'ers!!!!

When dealing with TTC if you can't find me at my blog, you can find me at fertilityties.com!!!

Harmony got hers last week and she made honor roll, or is it honor role? obiously i was not on that, again (both quarters). Nice work!!Brayden will get his 2day and he is so nervous he made himself sick this morning. Asking not to go to school but then I explained that we will still get the Report Card even if he never goes to school again.Poor guy, he has been struggling. He will have his IEP this quarter so hopefully having some adjustments to the work load and some help outside the classroom will help with all of this.The meds deff helped last year with focus but he was ticking all day long and with knowing how mean kids can be ticking would deff make him the outcast.Ticking is better - I really can tell a difference when he is calm and not playing a ton of video games that he doesnt tic as much. He sees a wonderful therapist every 2 weeks that helps him to deal with them and gives him tips on what to do to try to help the ticking. Slowly but surely we will figure all this out.He is doing well in basketball and going to the batting cages a few times a month to prepare for baseball season. He is also doing push-ups each night to build up some muscles! Hopefully he wont be too down about the report card, not really looking forward to hearing the sadness and the "i am a loser" stuff tonight...... ugggg.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

This is a bruise from my injections, normally its not like this at all, usually its a lil bruise or nothing at all. I dont even feel the injections anymore. Last night Matt went to give me my injection and freaked about it. WTH is that????? he says, lol. I didnt even know it was there til he pointed it out.Ahhhh, the joys of fertility injections..... so worth it in the end I hope!

Saturday, January 31, 2009

My 10 year old son, Brayden, thought it would be a good idea to put his tongue on a metal pole, in the middle of winter, on the way to school this week.......Not quite sure why but obviously it was not pretty and I didnt find out about it until after school that night.They were walking to their bus stop which is 2 blocks away from the house and Brayden got his tongue stuck on the pole and Harmony ended up having to RIP the skin off and leave it on the pole so they could get to the bus on time. It was "gushing (Harmonys words) blood" so they had to get a napkin from the bus driver.The picture has Braydens blood all over the pole and if you look close you can see at the bottom of his tongue in the middle there is the start of new, fresh skin. Then I asked him to "pose" by the pole and he was VERY careful to not touch it while he was posing for the picture, lol.Im guessing this came about cuz we told him not to do this and that his tongue would stick to it, but as we all know, kids will do what we tell them not to. Not sure if its cuz of course as parents we are idiots and know nothing or if its just putting the idea into their head, either way, we had a big laugh at his expense and hopefully there will be no more of that!!!

I have taken 2 days worth of injections already and I feel fine for the most part but the crazy sneaks up on me.This morning Harmony had cheerleading at 9AM so on our way home tears started to fill my eyes when "Wait" by White Lion came on the radio! Oh my - really?????? That song makes me cry?No reason for the tears, no sad memory as the song plays. So instead of fully letting the tears fall, I started to laugh really hard at my stupidity and the kids in the backseat (with Ipod touches attached to ears) thought I was crazy and wondered what the heck was so funny. Hard to even explain how crying over a song makes a person laugh but I tried. They were like "oh" and went back to their life and Ipod touches.Apparently being injected with a huge amount of lady hormones makes a person cry over weird 80's hair band rock songs! Geesh!Oher than that im feeling fine but guess I am more emotional than I thought.Its not like I havent been here before but I feel like this is our last chance and that scares the hell out of me, or maybe its cuz I was up and out of the house WAY too early on a COLD Sat morning. Who knows, spose I will have to see if another hair band makes me tear up.

Friday, January 30, 2009

I put some kids clothes on ebay last week and out of 5 posts only 1 dress sold. Im not gonna do it again, much easier to drop off at GoodWill. I cant believe that they didnt sell, but i am kinda glad cuz the shipping that i had to pay was way more than I thought it would be so I didnt make more than 3 bucks on the thing. LOL.

Maybe I will try taking it to a re-sale shop, everythign looks so nice after I spent time ironing, man i HATE ironing! It seems like such a waste of time.

Going thru the house to get rid of things we dont need. Always wanted to keep all the kids clothes in case i had more but looking at all the baby clothes the kids wore makes me sad and takes up a hell of a lot of room so maybe time to downsize, the stuff is cute but I could just get more if it ever happens.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

If there was one thing that I could do over and over this would be it! Harmony and I went to Florida in November of 2004 and we went to Sea World and then went over to swim with the dolphins.... Oh my, so neat! what a great way to end a crappy, unseasonably cold day in "sunny Florida".I got to swim with the dolphins and i met my new hubby in the same month. What a great month :)

Isnt he just the cutest damn thing you have ever seen?????? Anderson JasonNaked one is just a few weeks old and the dapper lil one is 11 weeks.Wish he was around more so he could get to know what a push over I am when it comes to adorable lil boys!!!

I am so new to all of this - never thought i would even want a blog.I will have LOTS of spelling errors cuz I cant spell at all and prob wont go thru the trouble of spell-checking so just deal with them, k?

Im gonna use this as an outlet for stress so even if no one ever reads it that is a-ok...... here goes.....

My new-ish hubby and I got married in April of 2007 and went on to add to our family. Who knew it was going to be this hard, geesh! In July 2007 we got pregnant and were so frickin excited!! I announced it to he and the kids with a shirt that said "KISS ME, I'M PREGNANT" and Matt told me that I shouldnt wear that cuz I would jinx our chances, lol. He didnt believe I was actually pregnant. Pregnancy confirmed by doctor and then pregnancy was gone, never got to see a heartbeat. Miscarried on my own and began fertility treatments.In September, around my birthday, I started hormone injections to make more eggies in preparation for an IUI in October. I had my 1st IUI October 4th, the day before my sister-in-laws wedding.That failed so we went on to the 2nd with next cycle. That one failed as well and it left a few really large cysts on my ovaries so i was not allowed to continue with any injections that cycle. We chose to move forward in January 2008 with a round of IVF. I was only able to produce 8 follicles and out of those follies only 2 of them were fertilizable. Both of them were transferred 3 days after fertilization and neither of them stuck. Big fat negative pregnancy test, uggg. So in june of 2008 we went forward with another round of IVF, different protocal and got 12 eggs this time and 8 of those were able to be fertilzed. We transferred 3 of the embryos and were hopeful. I got a + pregnancy test at home and then confirmed by the doctor. Yeah!!! I couldnt beleive it worked and were were very happy but very afraid something would happen.It did, the doctor thought that 2 embryos actually implanted and 1 dropped off very early. We still had one in there and went for the ultrasound. We got to see the lil blob on the screen and it was a great site! 2 weeks later we went back to see the heartbeat and found out that the baby had stopped progressing about a week earlier. Our baby was gone, again. I didnt think we were going to make it thru that.I had to go thru a forced miscarriage since my body wasnt doing it on its own. I had a lot of cysts again that were tricking my body into thinking the baby was still growing and thriving. That m/c was very painful emotionally as well as physically.Took some much needed time off of the injections and just took a fertility drug called clomid. We caught yet another egg and got a + pregnancy test at home but 3 days later that pregnancy was gone as well. Took me 3 more weeks to miscarry. In December of 2008 I had a surgery to see if there was anything "wrong" or "fixable" and there was not. Good news but I was hoping they could "fix me". Also during this time my new hubby and I are also trying to get used to living as a couple and everyone is trying to figure out how to live as a "family".Brayden was also going thru testing for ADHD and then taking medication - then going thru testing and more testing and more testing to finally being diagnosed with a tick disorder, tourettes.He is off all his meds that were helping him to focus but giving him way more "ticks". He is taking a few supplements, tourine and a B-complex as well as a "remedy" from the homeopathic guy that he and I see.2moro I will start another round of injections in hopes that this 4th IUI will give us a healthy baby.We will consder another round of IVF but we havnt figured out if we will try another round with my eggies or use a donor. I would like to use mine but if a donor can give us a better chance then that may be the way to go.

With this being a new year, I am looking to have it less stressful and happier. I am looking forward to spending less time injecting myself with hormones and not spending every 3rd day at the doctors office and spending more time at home with my family I already have. I am trying to focus on what I have instead of what I dont have and/or want. I am thankful for my family, my children and my husband. I am hoping that we can add to the family in the near future but trying to accept that we will be fine if that is not a possibility.

Eenie and Meenie

What this blog is to me

I started this what seems like forever ago and, yet, here I am still talking about the same darn thing. My intention is to use this blog as a place to get all of my acceptable and even the unacceptable feelings out during this newest part of the baby journey. We are fastly approaching 3 years now. This helps me to stop talking about it with family and friends who I can only assume are sick to death of hearing my complaining. They are sweet, but, honestly, how much can you listen to the same bitching from someone. I feel much less stressed this round and I think it may have a little to do with being able to write things and leave it be. I dont need to re-hash everything in my head or go over how I am feeling day after day. I suppose its like a journal or diary for some cept I enjoy typing WAY more than I do writing.

How far would you go to reach a goal

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About Me

Im a mama of 2 little people - My lovely (mini-me) daughter, Harmony, 13 and my baby, Brayden, 11. I am kinda newly married to Matt, a very talented musician - but he gets paid to play, he isnt looking to be "discovered" and travel around the country playing in his band! LOL!
He is working all the time and most summer weekends he is gone since those are very busy times. Kids and I spend a lot of time alone on the weekend nights and holidays, but all part of the deal I guess!
We have 2 dogs, Guinness is a 25-ish pound Schnocker (schanuser and cocker) and Muppet is a 15-ish pound Malteese/Schnauser mix. Kids got a guinea pig for xmas 2007 and he is a lot of fun. We are learning as we go with this lil guy.
I work full time for a wonderful lawyer and have a lot of time on my hands while he is in court so I get a lot personal stuff done at work! I dont have any hobbies or interests and absolutley NO talents! Harmony is a great artist, Brayden is great at getting his way and Matt is great at ticken me off!